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Dale Earnhardt Jr. had one message he wanted to give Justin Allgaier during Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series title race at Homestead-Miami Speedway: calm down, you’re in good shape. He was afraid to say it.
On the Dale Jr. Download, the JR Motorsports co-owner said he worried NASCAR would see a points update as an attempt to influence the race.
“NASCAR doesn’t like you to talk about the points to the driver, and they’re a little touchy about what you say. So I wanted to come on the radio; I badly; I was literally finger on the button, wanting to tell Justin, You got 15 points. All right? Calm down,” Earnhardt said.
“And but you, you can’t. Like, NASCAR will be like, Oh, you can’t be telling him that. That’s manipulation.”
Freddie Kraft, Bubba Wallace‘s spotter, was asked if anyone had faced consequences for that kind of thing. “I can, I can confirm,” Kraft said. “I got suspended.”
‘Get Him Off the Damn Wall’
Instead of using the team channel, Earnhardt switched to Channel Two and asked the spotter to pass the message along. On the in-car camera, Allgaier kept brushing the wall through Turns 3 and 4.
“But I got on Channel Two to the spotter, and I said, Hey. Can you tell him we’re in good shape? He can calm down, damn it,” Earnhardt said. “And I’m like, Get him off the damn wall.”
When he switched back, he heard the spotter deliver the message calmly. That wasn’t what Earnhardt had in mind.
“And I’m like, God damn. Tell him. Scream at him, you know?”
Allgaier got the message, finished the race and won his second O’Reilly Series championship.
Why Teams Are Careful
NASCAR’s sensitivity goes back to the fall 2024 race at Martinsville, when it penalized three teams for manipulating the finish of the Round of 8 finale. Each team was fined $100,000 and docked 50 points, and NASCAR suspended crew chiefs and spotters, including Kraft, for the following week’s championship race at Phoenix.
NASCAR has since said its line is about discussing other cars still in the fight, not a ban on all points talk.
Earnhardt has said before that he has no problem with spotters laying out the points picture, and saves his objections for obvious schemes, like a driver spinning on purpose. He would rather give drivers the information and let them decide.
For a car owner trying to settle down his driver with a title on the line, that gray area made a simple message feel like a risk.
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